The multi-award winning Ordinary Elephant return to Sundilla on Thursday, May 21; showtime at the AUUF is 7:30. Advance tickets cost just $15 and are available at Spicer’s Music, Ross House Coffee, and online at sundillamusic.com; admission at the door will be $20. Free coffee, tea, water and food will be available, and attendees are invited to bring whatever food or beverage they prefer.
International Folk Music Awards 2017 Artist of the Year Ordinary Elephant captivates listeners with their well-honed combination of insightful writing, effortless harmonies and intertwined clawhammer banjo and guitar. The collaboration of husband and wife Pete and Crystal Damore, their connection, and their influences (such as Gillian Welch, Guy Clark, Anais Mitchell) all meet on stage. “Two become one, in song…hand-in-glove harmonies surprise the listener with focused intensity and musical mastery,” says Mary Gauthier. The Associated Press is calling their latest album, Honest, “one of the best Americana albums of the year.”
Before being named Artist of the Year at the 2018 International Folk Music Awards, Ordinary Elephant was both a Kerrville New Folk Finalist and Falcon Ridge Emerging Artist in 2017, and their release ‘Before I Go’ was No. 7 on the Folk DJ Chart for the year. Crystal and Pete Damore have been performing together since 2011, when they called Texas home. The two became nomads in 2014 (leaving behind careers as a veterinary cardiologist and computer programmer!), and continue to live on the road full-time with their dogs, while creating and sharing the conversation of their music.
“Their harmonies, singing, the whole presentation…as genuine as it gets” – Lloyd Maines
“I remember when Gillian Welch and David Rawlings were here for the first time…I suspect that this couple is going to play in the same league in the foreseeable future.” (translated from Dutch – Dani Heyvaert, Rootstime.be
“These are elegant, warm and engaging songs delivered and played with instant warmth and beautiful, instinctive intensity.”
-Mike Ritchie, Celtic Music Radio
“I didn’t know Ordinary Elephant..really, really enjoyed this beautiful and subtle music…the perfect vocals, the delicate arrangements are killers”
-Michel Penard, Radio ISA France
“There is something decidedly compelling here.”-Ron Oates
“Both John McCutcheon’s CD Trolling for Dreams and Ordinary Elephant’s Before I Go are great musical talismans for 2017.”
– Tom D’Agostino, Folk Sessions\
“It’s not just raw talent, although that’s not a bad place to start. The part that becomes magic for Ordinary Elephant is the blend, the sound that becomes more than the sum of the individual parts.”- Bill Aspinwall, Texas Music Journal
“I’m impressed by many things, but mostly by the songwriting style…[the lyrics are] very economical and stripped down, but seem to effortlessly evoke the kind of poignancy and emotion someone expects of artists with more salt on their shoulders.”- Chuck Hawthorne
“Listening to Ordinary Elephant live was a real treat. Tight harmonies, solid songwriting, and an overall musical experience comparable to the best of T Bone Burnett”-Ray Younkin